Suhl is a city in Thuringia, Germany, located 50 kilometres (31 miles) SE of Erfurt, 110 kilometres (68 miles) NE of Würzburg and 130 kilometres (81 miles) N of Nuremberg. With its 35,000 inhabitants, it is the smallest of the six urban districts within Thuringia. Together with its northern neighbour-town Zella-Mehlis, Suhl forms the largest urban area in the Thuringian Forest with a population of 46,000. The region around Suhl is marked by up to 1,000-meter high mountains, including Thuringia's highest peak, the Großer Beerberg (983 m), approximately 5 kilometres (3 miles) NE of the city centre.

Suhl was first mentioned in 1318 and stayed a small mining and metalworking town, until industrialization broke through in late 19th century and Suhl became a centre of Germany's arm production, specialized on rifles and guns with companies such as Sauer & Sohn. Furthermore, the engineering industry was based in Suhl with Simson, a famous car and moped producer. In 1952, Suhl became one of East Germany's 14 district capitals, which led to a government-directed period of urban growth and conversion. Its results – a typical 1960s concrete architecture-marked city centre – are defining until today. With the loss of its administrative and industrial functions, Suhl saw a lasting period of urban decline since 1990.

Suhl is known for its sportsmen, especially in shooting, winter sports, and volleyball.

First appearing in 1318, the coat of arms from 1365 shows two hammers, indicating the city's most important livelihood: metal processing. The region belonged to the Henneberg Counts since the 11th century and Suhl was located on an important trade route from Gotha, Erfurt and Arnstadt passing the mountains at Oberhof and continuing to the Henneberg's residence, Schleusingen.

Suhl has been a Flecken (small market town) since 1445 and the full municipal rights were granted in 1527 making Suhl one of the youngest cities in Thuringia. The Reformation was introduced in 1544 and the Hennebergs died out in 1583, as Suhl became part of Saxony, where it remained until 1815. Unlike most of Thuringia, it didn't belong to the Ernestine line but to the Albertine line of the Wettins since 1660, so that it had been a Saxonian and later Prussian exclave within Thuringia for nearly 300 years. During the 16th century, iron mining and metalworking saw a boom, finished by the Thirty Years' War, as general Johann Ludwig Hektor von Isolani's troops burnt down the city in 1634.

The Congress of Vienna in 1815 led to the Saxonian loss of Suhl, which became part of Prussia now. Staying an exclave within Ernestine territories, Suhl was part of the Schleusingen district until the dissolution of Prussia in 1945.

The later 19th century brought the connection to the railway in 1882 and the industrialisation of the metalworking business. About 1920, Suhl has been a centre of left-wing revolutionary groups, so that the Reichswehr occupied the city (and the neighbour-town Zella-Mehlis) during the Kapp Putsch and ended the workers uprising. After 1935, the military industry saw another boom, caused by the Nazi armament. About 10,000 forced labourers had to work in the city's arms industry after 1940.

The US Army reached Suhl on 3 April 1945 and was replaced by Soviet troops on 1 July 1945. At the same year, Suhl became part of Thuringia, which was replaced by three Bezirks in 1952. Suhl became the capital of the south-western Bezirk, reaching from Bad Salzungen in the north-west to Sonneberg in the south-east with a population of 550,000. During the GDR period, the upgraded city saw a period of rapid urban growth, which is defining until today.

After the German reunification in 1990, Suhl lost its administrative functions when Thuringia was refounded and replaced the Bezirks. Furthermore, the industry collapsed. Both led to a structural crises, which isn't overcome yet. The population of Suhl declined about 35% since 1988.

The metal processing of Suhl naturally led, during the Renaissance, to other major local industries, including gunsmithing and armoring. Suhl was a major producer of cannons throughout the seventeenth and subsequent centuries, and Suhl cannons were used by many European powers. A major arms company that was located in Suhl for almost 200 years was J.P. Sauer und Sohn GmbH, producer of hunting rifles, shotguns, and pistols, such as the Sauer 38H, until moving operations to Eckernförde at the end of WWII.

Other prominent firearms manufacturers in Suhl included

Simson (also known as BSW and then Gustloff Werke under Nazi rule and Ernst Thälmann Suhl under Communist rule),

The largest manufacturer producing firearms currently in Suhl is Merkel GmbH, who make both rifles and shotguns.

During the Cold War, the East German national shooting arena was located at Suhl, and hosted many top-level competitions, including the 1986 ISSF World Championships. Although surpassed in this respect in the unified Germany by the Olympic shooting centre at Munich, Suhl remains an important place to the sport. It hosts Germany's only school for armorers, and a well equipped museum of weapons.

Suhl is located on the south-western edge of the Thuringian Forest. To the south-west, the Small Thuringian Forest (some foothills of the Thuringian forest) is situated. The terrain is mountainous to all directions, some important mountains are: the Großer Beerberg (983 m, highest one in Thuringia) in the north-east, the Ringberg (745 m), the Döllberg (760 m), the Friedberg (649 m) and the Adlersberg (859 m) in the east, the Steinsburg (641 m) in the south, the Heiliger Berg (513 m), the Domberg (675 m) and the Berg Bock (709 m) in the north-west as well as the Bocksberg (609 m) and the Hoheloh (526 m) within the city. The centre itself is located in an elevation of 450 m and nearly the complete non-build on part of the municipal territory is forested. There are a few small rivers running through Suhl: The Hasel rises at Friedberg in the south-east and runs westward through Suhl, Heinrichs, Mäbendorf, Dietzhausen and Wichtshausen. The Lauter rises on the southern slope of Großer Beerberg mountain and runs through Goldlauter, Lauter and the city centre, before it joins the Hasel behind the station. The Mühlwasser rises on the western slope of Großer Beerberg and runs southward through the northern city parts before it joins the Lauter at the northern city centre.

A band of iron ores follows the fault dividing the Suhler Scholle from the sedimentary rocks to the southwest, while the copper and silver deposits are to the northeast in the Permian deposits above the Suhler Scholle. Southeast of town, there is a significant uranium deposit in the Buntsandstein.[4]

The area around Suhl was settled during the later Middle Ages, nevertheless, Suhl stayed a village resp. small town of 1,000 to 2,000 inhabitants during this period. The growth of proto-industrial manufacturing businesses in 17th and 18th century led to a first increase of population up to 6,000 around 1800. During the following decades, the industrial revolution in other German regions led to an economic crisis in Suhl, because of the bad traffic conditions for exporting products. Nevertheless, the population grew further to 10,000 in the 1880s, as the city got finally connected to the railway. Compared to other upcoming cities in Germany, the growth of population stayed slight until 1935, as Suhl counted 15,000 inhabitants. Then, the arm production for World War II brought an economic boom to Suhl and a growth of population up to 26,000 in 1940, which stayed the same until the early 1960s. Between 1960 and 1988, the population grew up to 56,000, forced by the government's expansion of Suhl as a capital of one of the 14 Bezirks in GDR. After the reunification in 1990, the city lost its administrative and economic functions, which led to an extreme decline in population. It shrunk to 48,000 in 2000 and 36,000 in 2012. With a decline of more than 35% since 1988, Suhl is among the heaviest shrinking cities in Germany.

The average decrease of population between 2009 and 2012 was approximately 1.68% p. a, which is faster than in bordering rural regions. Suburbanization played only a small role in Suhl. It occurred after the reunification for a short time in the 1990s, but most of the suburban areas were situated within the administrative city borders. During the 1990s and the 2000s, many inhabitants left Suhl to search a better life in west Germany or other major east German cities like Erfurt, Jena or Leipzig. The birth deficit, caused by the high average age of the population, is getting a bigger problem because there is no immigration to compensate it yet. Urban planning activities to tear down unused flats led to a relatively low vacancy rate of 8% (according to 2011 EU census), compared with a loss in population of more than 35% since 1988.

The birth deficit was 207 in 2012, this is -5.8 per 1,000 inhabitants (Thuringian average: -4.5; national average: -2.4). The net migration rate was -11.5 per 1,000 inhabitants in 2012 (Thuringian average: -0.8; national average: +4.6).[5] The most important target regions of Suhl migrants are other Thuringian regions like Erfurt, Jena and Eisenach same as the western German conurbations.

Like other eastern German cities, Suhl has only a small amount of foreign population: around 1.5% are non-Germans by citizenship and overall 3.9% are migrants (according to 2011 EU census). Differing from the national average, the biggest groups of migrants in Suhl are Russians and Vietnamese people. During recent years, the economic situation of the city improved: the unemployment rate declined from 16% in 2006 to 7% in 2013, which is one of the lowest rates among Thuringia's major cities. Due to the official atheism in former GDR, most of the population is non-religious. 12.6% are members of the Evangelical Church in Central Germany and 2.5% are Catholics (according to 2011 EU census).

Suhl's cityscape is marked by the lack of flat ground to build on, this is why the city's morphology appears picked and incoherent. The city centre developed during the Middle Ages around the Marktplatz and the Steinweg (as main street) next to the confluence of Lauter and Rimbach river. Later, the city grew to the east and south to the bordering hills and valleys. After World War II, Suhl became the capital of one of the 14 Bezirks in the GDR in 1952. During the following decades, the city doubled its population, many Plattenbau settlements developed at the periphery and the centre got largely converted. The old town around Friedrich-König-Straße was demolished during the 1960s, same as the quarters east of Topfmarkt later. They got rebuild with contemporary concrete architecture and Plattenbau buildings. The new city centre with all the important public buildings was developed around Friedrich-König-Straße, even with large-scaled high-rise buildings. After the reunification, the population shrunk heavily leading to high vacancy rates. The government reacted on this by demolishing some of the Plattenbau settlements at the periphery, some buildings stood only for 20 years. Compared with other East German cities, the fight against vacancy was more simple in Suhl, because vacancy was concentrated at the periphery and not in the city centre (like in the most older cities in East Germany), which made it easy to demolish and renaturate the areas. A bigger problem is vacancy in shops in the city centre, because the retail in Suhl is also in a crisis for many years.

A building of the former Simson factory with A 73's Haseltal bridge in background

Another former Simson building

Agriculture plays no role in Suhl, only 17% of the municipal territory are in agricultural use. The soil isn't very fertile and the climate is harsh, the most cultivated strains are maize and rapeseed, furthermore there is cattle farming on some areas. On the other hand, 63% of the territory are forest, so that wood production plays a role in Suhl.

Suhl's industry has always been based on metalworking. In the past, the city was a leading arms producer in Germany and the vehicle production was another pillar of the local industry. After the reunification in 1990, the industry collapsed and the most factories got closed. Important companies of today are CDA, a producer of data replication media, Zimbo, a meat producer, Gramss, an industrial bakery, Paragon, a car parts supplier, and Merkel, the last remained arms producer in Suhl. In 2012, there were 27 companies in industrial production with more than 20 workers employing 2,000 persons and generating a turnover of € 295 millions.[6]

Services in Suhl are including the typical regional supply (like retail, hospital, cinema etc.) and some preserved administrative functions over the surrounding districts like the Industrie- und Handelskammer and the regional centres of Arbeitsagentur and Rentenversicherung. Furthermore, tourism plays a role because of the beautiful landscape around. In 2012, there were 93,000 hotel guests having 245,000 overnight stays in Suhl.[7]

Suhl got connected to the railway quite late, because of its difficult terrain. The Neudietendorf–Ritschenhausen railway through the city was opened in 1882 (southern direction to Würzburg) and in 1884 (northern direction to Erfurt). It was one of only few main mountain railways in Prussia with the large, 3039 m long Brandleite Tunnel north of the city. Later, this railway became an important link between Berlin and south-western Germany, until the inner-German border cut it off in 1949. Since that time, there is only regional traffic on the line (except a short time in 1990s with long-distance trains). The express train runs every two hours to Erfurt in the north and Würzburg in the south, where connections to long-distance trains are given. Furthermore, there are local trains to Erfurt and Meiningen, running also every two hours, so that there is overall a connection once an hour in both directions. Another railway to Schleusingen was opened in 1911 and closed in 1997. With a gradient of nearly 7%, it was one of the steepest regular railways in Germany. Stations in Suhl besides the main station are located in Heinrichs and Dietzhausen, whereas the Stations Suhler Neundorf and Friedberg at the Schleusingen line are abandoned.

Suhl is situated at the junction of Bundesautobahn 71 (Erfurt–Würzburg) and Bundesautobahn 73 (Suhl–Nuremberg). Both got opened during the 2000s and host some impressive bridges and tunnels around Suhl, like the Rennsteig Tunnel in the north and the 82 m high Haseltalbrücke at Heinrichs district. A Bundesstraße through Suhl was the Bundesstraße 247 from Gotha in the north to Schleusingen in the south. It was annulled after the opening of both Autobahns and is now a secondary road. Other important secondary roads run to Meiningen in the west and Ilmenau in the east.

Biking is getting more and more popular since the construction of quality cycle tracks began in the 1990s. For tourism serve the Hasel track from Suhl to the Werra valley near Meiningen. Furthermore, there are some mountainbiking tracks within the Thuringian Forest.

Public transport is carried out by a bus line network connecting the city centre with the outskirts, Zella-Mehlis and neighbouring villages. A trolleybus system was planned during the late 1980s, but not realized after the reunification.